[Through your curse, a lvl 3 Farm Hand has been slain]

[Association experience awarded]

[You leveled up!]

‘..what?’ thought lord Dimrat. ‘No, forget it...’

Dimrat ground his teeth. He had problems. There were enough creatures great and small to fill an ark. Many came to feast on the remains of their own faction, Vellom’s mangled victims that littered the burrows. It was an oversight that portrayed a stark difference in their strength, and one that irritated him to no end. He spat mud.

‘Petulant braggart. My grave, is it? ..I’ll show you.’

‘...where even am I?!’

[Zone: Warrens of Lost Edinnor]

[Reigning faction: Undead]

‘Pfft, the Undead?’

[Faction: Undead]

Faction relationship: Neutral

His mind’s eye fixated on the word ‘neutral’ with a bewildered daze, when he began to rattle with amusement. ‘Neutral? I’m in better standing with the enemy than my own faction? I obliterated the Undead in the countless thousands and still I am neutral?’

‘Such baffling idiocy. The administration indeed lives up to its reputation. The dungeon master must be inundated with your incompetence’

‘Though…’, he mused, ‘what were my crimes against the Fallen for my reputation to dwindle at tentative?’

The system did not respond.

‘Humph. Your silence speaks volumes to my innocence’

His eyes climbed back up [Reigning faction: Undead].

'...system. By what means do the Undead Reign over this worthless bug’s nest?’

[Tutorial: zone wars]: Zone wars are skirmishes waged across all territories. Each zone plays out a different game and has its own set of rules. In [Warrens of Lost Edinnor] occupants defend a cursed grail upon the altar. Zone challengers must spill [Edinnorean Shambler]’s blood upon the grail and cast it into the Hearth to claim territory.

[Zone boss]: a powerful reanimated construct that spawns at the Hearth and defends it from attackers.

[The Hearth]: Territory capture point. Complete zone challenges to adjust buffs and debuffs applied within the Hearth chamber]

It amused him that he could mince his words and the system would entertain it. ‘You have a redeeming quality. ..what are zone buffs?’

Currently applied zone buffs in [Warrens of Lost Edinnor]:

[Infiltrator]: You remain unseen. First strike damage multiplier and critical strike chance (Agility) +3%

[Pilgrim]: You are not considered a threat. Faction hostility reduced.

[Lost Soul]: You are underleveled. EXP gain +25%

‘Oh, what are these?’

[Zone buffs are situational boons granted by the Dungeon Master in times of need and fortune]

‘Interesting’ His eyes landed on Pilgrim. ‘That would explain why I’m not already some mutt’s chew toy. But Infiltrator?’ He flitted back and forth between the two boons, then grinned with all the ridiculous and animated menace of a mad head.

‘Do not encourage me to exploit mechanics, my liege. I can hardly suppress my excitement to slaughter everything here as it is. Hmmm, three percent. I suppose that corresponds with my tragic Agility score of three. One point of agility must equal one percent damage multiplier. That has potential does it not? ...then I must be careful of loathsome ambush merchants who would turn my own scheme against me’

‘But what of the zone itself?’

[Warrens of Lost Edinnor]: Rich natural caverns interspersed and interconnected approximately 751 years ago by [Dwarven] mining operations and [Hideous Raging Bullant Colony(extinct)] introducing an intelligent subterranean species [Edinnoreans] to the outside world for the first and only time.

‘A warren filled with mindless adversaries and long since abandoned? Why, It is practically begging to be sired by me!’

A pack of particularly ambitious monsters occupied the central burrow, surrounded by clutters of ghastly arachnids and smaller four-legged arachnipods that knew better than to approach. The spiders’ abdomens resembled large harrowing faces that gave off the appearance of screaming. It was a camouflage he saw through easily. It meant they were a species that used trickery to dissuade predators rather than any sort of serious weaponry. It seemed the larger they were, the more legs they grew.

[Possessed Arachnipod] lvl: 4

[Poisonous Haunted Arachnid (I)] lvl: 11

[Poltergeist Arachnigod (II)] lvl: 14

But the other monsters that they avoided told him nothing. They appeared to be a genus of carnivorous quadrupeds, plantlike; almost canine in form, with oversized flower bulbs for heads. Bundles of luminous filaments oscillated from the lips of their bulbs, that phased through the remains of carcasses like ghostly appendages lapping at a strange ethereal lifeforce.

[Carnivorous Skullily Hound (II)] lvl: 6

[Ghoulish Skullily Hound (II)] lvl: 16 [Pack leader]

[Ghoulish Skullily Hound (II)] lvl: 10

[Carnivorous Skullily Mutt (I)] lvl: 3

[Ghoulish Skullily Hound (II)] lvl: 7

‘I suspect tier one and two monsters are no joke. But they are dullards, and off guard… These mangey mutts could fuel the Fallen’s resurgence. Chiefly mine. In fact, it would be a kindness to put them down. Nothing that feeds on its own kind deserves to live. I cannot let this opportunity escape. If I struck first…’

He glanced at his snaily companion.

‘What do you think, brother? Shall we retreat like spineless cowards, or delve deeper in search of this zone Hearth?’

The snail probed at him unperturbed, an almost childlike ignorance to its eyes.

‘Actually…’

[Shellbert the Immortal Snail(II)]: lvl 16

Dimrat’s jaw swung off.

‘Excuse me? You are of a higher lvl than I?! And tier two at that! You also had a name this whole time and never mentioned it? What an uncouth rapscallion!’

'Bah. Why am I overthinking things? This amount of EXP sitting in my lap will do nicely. It is all mine and I will share none of it!'

Shellbert had begun to snail ahead while Dimrat rabbited on, when he yelled ‘back you fool! Retreat to my shadow, where I can protect you!’

This pricked at the ears of the feast. A quiver of hesitancy caught his breath, but it only served to prop up his grin. His eyes surged red, and the afterparty commenced.

‘You will be the first to fuel my growth’

[Cursed eyes activated]

[99.99% evil energy dispersed into the dungeon]

The cannon-like backdraft covered the den with a blanket of dust, and a Skullily’s head got smashed into a scattering of flowery pollen. The Skullily blew away, and crashed into a sticky funnel from where a spider twice its size snatched it inside at truly frightening speeds.

[Critical hit! Double damage applied. +3% modifier(Agility) applied]

[Bloody] activated. 5% damage returned as HP.

[You’ve slain a tier II lvl 6 Carnivorous Skullily Hound]

[Assisted kill: experience awarded]

[You leveled up!]

[You leveled up!]

Buff(s) lost: [Pilgrim], [Infiltrator]

Buff(s) gained: [Invader] You are considered a threat. Hostility increased.

The hungry hounds looked up and watched.

For a moment of rapture he marveled at his new eye toy, until the other Skullilies began to peel open at the bulb. First the sepals then the petals rolled back into a thick collar around the nape, revealing polished white canine skulls that salivated with smoky viscous acid. Then they opened their jaws wide.

‘You are courting death’

Their bodies began to glow with an almost spiritual energy, drawn from the tips of their gnarled feet and into their mouths. Mouths that swelled with a dense ball of light, that only spun faster and larger by the second.

When a Skullily retched its ball of light. The ball jumped towards Dimrat. His head remained static, but his bulging eyes followed the ball that bounced once on the floor, then ricocheted off Shellbert and hit Dimrat clean in the face.

[Indomitable activated]: you negated an otherwise fatal blow. Timer: [4 days]

He rattled and bounced and spluttered and coughed around the back of the den like a cueball, then landed back on the floor beside Shellbert. Dimrat's eyes rolled around in their sockets before his vision returned, then bulged at the system message.

[You took 97 (Spirit) dmg]

‘How much?!’

He barely spoke, when the pack opened fire.

Dimrat rolled along the floor behind Shellbert for protection, and braced his teeth to cracking. The lightballs either bounced off Shellbert, or bounced right by, where they rolled off the realm edge. He had well and truly snookered himself.

He peeped the slope of Shellbert’s back, then with an irony of righteous indignation cried ‘a ranged ambush! You would dare try such underhanded tricks against me?!’ though even while he protested, his eyes were swirling back into deep red orbs.

[Cursed eyes activated]

[99.99% evil energy dispersed into the dungeon]

A toothy grin confirmed his accuracy. While the other Skullies charged their shots, one of them yelped into a violent spin and disappeared into a large funnel web further away; it’s Spirit blast exploded inside its mouth and like a bolt of fire it illuminated the intimidating figure of what waited inside with open arms. Tiny arachnids spilled from the funnel, followed by a giant face of eyes and fangs.

[Bloody] activated. 5% damage returned as HP.

[You’ve slain a tier II lvl 7 Ghoulish Skullily Hound]

[Assisted kill: experience awarded]

[You leveled up!]

[You leveled up!]

The second volley splashed about him, and he very nearly took one that curved off Shellbert’s seemingly indestructible exterior into a suspended overhead whir, where he was forced to roll out of its way and back into full view. They’d already started a third volley.

More of them rushed from the unseen to bolster the Skullies ranks. It didn’t look good. Shellbert had been tucked inside his shell jittering with the recoil, where he peeped at Dimrat through a chip at the lip.

‘I’m trying!’

He rolled back as best he could. He even put his jaw into action to push himself into a roll, where he clunked against Shellbert then spun himself up right.

‘Remain still while I potshot these curs!’

[Cursed Eyes failed]: MP 3/16

‘Oh, Bollocks’

Right on cue, the Skullilies lunged.

Dimrat yelped and spun to make good his retreat. Frail tarp strewn over crates and petrified nets of web still fluttered on foul winds. With a frantic panic he darted through the green flicker in search of an answer. One came, but he absolutely balked at the idea. It was a large studded chest, the one Vellom had sat on to tell her story.

‘Hide?! I am no rogue!’

They were at the entrance. He bit into the corner of the chest and heaved up the lid with all his might, which at present was precisely not enough, until it yielded with a high pitch screech. He let go and opened his eyes, then screamed.

The chest had teeth. Lots of them.